


Inevitable as the Tide

by BrighteyedJill



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Coercion, Dubious Consent, F/M, Forced Prostitution, M/M, Power Imbalance, President Snow is a real asshole, Seduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 19:11:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1699424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrighteyedJill/pseuds/BrighteyedJill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finnick learns fast; he's had to. After Annie Cresta survives the 70th Hunger Games, President Snow educates Finnick about his place in the Capitol.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inevitable as the Tide

**Author's Note:**

> Set pre-series, but contains minor spoilers about character background revealed in _Mockingjay_

They allowed Finnick to see Annie after she was taken from the flooded arena. She smelled like seawater. Her eyes were huge and dark, her breathing shallow. The broadcasts had shown the cuts and bruises, but not how pale she was: pale, and shaking.

As soon as he entered the room, Annie tore away from the prep team, threw herself at Finnick with a strangled cry, and held on with a painful intensity. 

Finnick clutched her to his chest, surprised to find his own shivering mirrored Annie’s. “I’m here,” he whispered. “They can’t hurt you anymore. You’re out. You won. I’m here.”

“No no no,” she whispered back. She repeated it constantly, rhythmically, like the charms superstitious fishermen used, imagining they could ward off a coming storm. “No no no.”

“Finnick!” From the doorway Nestor, the district escort, waved. His hair was spiked like a sea urchin, and he clutched a folder stuffed with papers. “Time to go. You have a meeting.”

“I’m staying.” Finnick tucked Annie in closer, pressing his cheek to her damp hair. 

Annie’s dirty hands clutched at Finnick’s finely-crafted Capitol clothes. “No no no,” she whispered against his chest.

“It’s alright,” he assured here. “I’m here.”

“Now now, let’s not waste time.” Nestor’s bustled into the room and glared at the prep team, who shuffled uncertainly. “She has an interview, my dear boy. And you can’t keep President Snow waiting.”

“Snow?” Finnick’s eyes snapped past Annie to look at Nestor. 

One of the prep team slunk forward to pull Annie away, but she swung at him, screaming, before planting herself in front of Finnick in a defensive stance. Two Peacekeepers abandoned their post at the door to rush at her. One hauled her off her feet. She flailed and kicked as they pulled her back. 

“Finnick!” she screamed. Her eyes were wild, pupils blown.

When he moved, the other Peacekeeper shoved him to the ground and sent him sprawling. Momentarily stunned—no one pushed Finnick, no one hurt him, not in years—he watched them wrestle her arms behind her back and grab a handful of her tangled hair to quell her struggles. 

Finnick sprang up, reaching for a trident that wasn’t there, but Nestor stepped neatly in front of him and placed one neatly manicured finger with its bright orange nail against his chest. “No, sweetie. Victors have their responsibilities.”

Finnick bit back a snarl at Nestor’s oft-repeated warning, but as three more Peacekeepers pounded into the room to subdue Annie, he stepped back.

“Good boy.” Nestor patted his cheek.

Finnick stood with clenched fists as they dragged Annie away. She screamed, “No! No! No!” Her eyes never left Finnick.  
\--

President Snow poured Finnick a fresh glass of red cordial before settling back in his chair and focusing on the high-quality projection of the evening’s broadcast: recaps and commentary of the games in preparation for the main victory celebration. Finnick wouldn’t have expected the President to serve himself, but he hadn’t seen any attendant, not even an Avox, since Nestor had delivered him to the president’s personal living quarters. 

Finnick picked up his glass and held it to his lips, but did not drink. His blood had been humming, battle-ready, since that shove he’d taken earlier. He would hold himself armed and ready for whatever these games brought: his arrogance the shield of his net, his charm his trident.

The broadcast replayed a clip from the games in slow-motion: the dam breaking, water pouring over the arena, tributes scrambling for vanishing high ground, and Annie: floating with the waves, keeping her head up.

“You must be very proud of your mentee,” said Snow.

“Yes.” Finnick allowed himself just one sip of the cordial as his mind scrolled past the images of all of his previous, dead mentees, the fallen tributes of District Four, every one of them since his own victory. He forced lightness into his tone. “We get along well with water. Everyone in the district will be proud.” 

“You especially. I understand this young woman is particularly…special to you.”

That was it—the first feint, Snow feeling out his defenses. Finnick put on a startled laugh. He let his tongue dart out to lick a stray drop of cordial at the edge of his mouth, and then chased it with his thumb, ever so casually. “Now, President, you know I don’t play favorites when it comes to—“

“Do not lie to me, boy. I have no patience for it.” Snow’s flat, cold eyes caught and held Finnick’s. He felt his breath stop in his chest, as if he’d been plunged into the icy sea. But a child of Four, he knew how to endure that. Finnick stayed still, not wasting his breath. At last, Snow turned his gaze back to the broadcast. “Now, as a victor, Ms. Cresta will have certain responsibilities.”

“The old tour grind.” Finnick took up his battered bravado and held onto it hard. “I swear, if I never see another train, it’ll be too soon.”

“You prefer to spend your time in the Capitol.”

“It does have its attractions.” Finnick picked out an olive from one of the dishes on the side table and rolled it between his fingers until he saw Snow watching from the corner of his eye. Then he popped the olive into his mouth and swallowed deliberately. “I’ve become fond of the place.”

Snow looked straight at him until Finnick gave him his attention. “And yet, you’ve been neglecting your responsibilities as a victor.”

Another verbal thrust, unexpected, sent Finnick scrambling to put himself back on even footing. “I’m not sure what you mean, sir. Nestor keeps me on such a busy schedule. Attending events, promoting—“

“Yes, you’re very popular. And yet, you never accept any of the personal invitations you’re extended.”

“Those?” Finnick temporized, a strategic retreat. He knew what Snow meant—invitations that went beyond his usual flirting, the elaborate social dance of courtship in the Capitol that had proven so well-suited to his talents. Pleas, and occasionally demands, for physical demonstrations of his favor reached him regularly, but Finnick had not, never once, stepped over the line to make his veiled promises into reality for his admirers. He had committed himself elsewhere, and now that Annie would be expected to participate in life in the Capitol, he wouldn’t have her seeing or hearing about anything that would make her doubt him. “I accepted an invitation to Antinous Alba’s garden party just last month.”

“No, not that kind.” Snow beckoned Finnick closer, as if to impart a secret. “Ones that request the pleasure of your intimate company.”

Finnick’s smile stayed on only out of long practice, but he couldn’t stop the blood rushing to his cheeks. “Well, sir, there’s only so much of me to go around.”

“Yes. You keep their lust simmering.” Snow leaned forward to clasp his hand around the back of Finnick’s neck. His touch felt cold and clammy against Finnick’s flushed skin. “That makes you a desirable commodity. That gives you value. But an object of value is no good to me, or to the Capitol, in idleness. I need to be able to use that object. To take advantage of it when the situation warrants.” Snow released his grip. He leaned back in his chair and sipped from his crystal goblet. 

Finnick stared at the red liquid. He caught, briefly, the smell of blood. He wondered for a moment, crazily, if he’d been wounded: if Snow’s maneuver had left him gutted physically as well as destroying the carefully maintained defenses that had previously served him so well in the Capitol. He cursed every calculated wink, every seemingly accidental brush of his fingers against an admirer’s arm, every deliberate lick of his lips that had led Snow to see him this way. Finnick picked up his own mostly-full goblet. The liquid shook with the tremor in his hand.

Snow plucked the goblet from Finnick’s numb fingers and set it aside. He wore a smile of his own, though it could never be called charming. “What I need to know from you, Mr. Odair, is whether you are prepared to begin fulfilling the responsibilities you’ve been neglecting, or if a more recent victor from your district would be better suited.”

Finnick stared. For a moment, he truly didn’t know what Snow might mean, because there hadn’t been another victor from Four since his games. Until today. Finnick’s arrogance, his charm, his ability to smile, all of his defenses washed away in the wave of that realization. He sat defenseless under the keen scrutiny of his enemy. “No,” he whispered.

“Excuse me?”

“No, sir.” Finnick made himself look up, into the cold eyes of President Snow. “No other victor. I’m fully capable of taking care of those responsibilities myself.”

Snow emptied his goblet and set it on the side table with a clink that sounded too loud in the tense silence. “Prove it.”

“Sir?” Finnick blinked.

“You are the most coveted fuck in the Capitol.” The obscenity sounded especially vulgar in that flat, patrician voice. “Make me believe that you’ve chosen my company tonight.”

Finnick felt a cold pressure all around him, as when he dove too deep, pressed on all sides as the water tried to crush him. The food he’d eaten roiled in his belly. The stink of decaying roses almost made him gag. But he couldn’t drown. Not here. He forced himself to breathe. When he squeezed his eyes closed, he could see Annie, waving at him from a distant shore, hair a dark, wet halo. He opened his eyes.

Snow sat regarding him with that cold, reptilian gaze. “Do you have something to say?”

“There’s no hurry.” Finnick dragged out a mask of playful seduction from his wrecked defenses. He propped it up with his lingering nausea, and his growing anger at the unfairness of the world, and his terrible fear. “We have all the time you want.”

Snow raised an eyebrow. “Surely you’ll be wanting to watch the interview and the victory celebrations.”

“No.” Finnick slid onto his knees on the floor before Snow. He closed his strong, battle-scarred hand over Snow’s cold, smooth one. He drew the projector control out of Snow’s grip and tossed it aside. “Everything I need tonight is right here.”

Just after dawn, Finnick stood splashing cold water on his face in the bathroom adjoining the president’s personal bedroom. After he wiped a plush red towel over his face, he looked up to see the man himself, wrapped in a thick robe, reflected in the mirror looking over Finnick’s shoulder.

Snow’s eyes traced the tan length of Finnick’s naked body before meeting his eyes. “Your escort will receive orders from my office. I trust you won’t be refusing any of those invitations.”

“No. We understand each other, sir.” Finnick turned and leaned back against the sink, displaying the lean lines of his body, now marked with evidence of Finnick’s commitment to the Capitol.

Snow drifted closer and planted himself between Finnick’s legs. Finnick tilted his head up to deliver a kiss, but President Snow turned his head away, frowning as if an animal had tried to slobber on him. 

“You may go, Mr. Odair.”  
\--

Finnick held Annie in the night, listening to the clack-clack-clack of the train rolling over the tracks. 

”Just a quick trip. You’ll barely get off the train in Four,” Nestor had warned him. ”Our new victor will have appearances, of course, but you’ll be needed back at the Capitol.”

Finnick had resolved not to waste a moment with Annie. He’d take as much time as they allowed him, no matter what awaited him back at the Capitol. With his arms wrapped around her, she’d finally stopped shaking. She slept like the dead, but he could feel her chest rise and fall, breathing slow and peacefully. Safe. Alive. 

Finnick had thought he’d be the one to comfort Annie when the nightmares came. Instead, he woke screaming. 

Annie smoothed his hair back and cradled him in her arms, while he whispered, “No no no,” against her shoulder. 

“I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m here.”


End file.
